Self-Pity, Apologies and Inquiries

Dear K,

Should I begin with an apology? Is that necessary? I don't think so. Not for what I said. They were pretty words, and well meant. Maybe with an apology for what follows. This isn't going to be fun, but these letters have never been about fun. They've always been about sharing scrapes and scars and insecurities.

So, I'm sorry. What follows is a swamp of self-pity.

Excuse this indulgence, but it has been made clear to me that I will be alone for a very long time. I have come to terms with this. I like living alone. I like sleeping alone. I work well alone. When I come home at night there is no one to wake. There is no one to endlessly recount my days to. I don't have to fill in someone else on the trivia of my increasingly mediocre existence. I can escape into other lives. I can eat dinner at 9 PM and leave the dishes in the sink. I have become very good at being alone.

I don't need your apologies or sympathy. Don't misunderstand me, I appreciate both, and I am glad for the company, but I won't break down when they aren't offered. I'm glad you replied. But I knew from the moment I thought of that first sentence, I knew how the exchange would end. I knew even when I sent you that drunken ramble what would happen. I knew it all. There was no hope in the words I wrote with drunken fingers. There never could be. We may be star-crossed, but we certainly aren't lovers.

But sometimes K, you have to run into the wall. Sometimes you have to break yourself against reality. Hope is important. What's more, is acting on hope. It is important to leap and fall and bleed.

Can I ask you something in reply?

Why?

And understand that I don't want or need you to have any feelings other than friendship for me. I'm not begging for anything, and I am not pathetic. I simply don't understand this continued response.

I have crafted myself into this person, and no one seems to want it.

Tell me why. There has never been a good enough reason. It is always just that lack of spark. There is something missing.

Someday I would like to know what I am missing,

K